The Local Life of Maude Adams

She was only nine months old when she made her first stage appearance, but the professionalism was evident from the start.

The young actress was the understudy for an even younger actress who had begun bawling backstage. The director, thinking quickly, sent her out on stage instead for the second act.

From that formative moment, Maude Adams' dedication to acting was all-consuming.

"She always said she would never get married," said Dale Spencer, the curator for the Lake Ronkonkoma Historical Society. "The thing she was married to was her acting."

Acting was the common thread, but after retirement she pursued related endeavors in radio, stage directing and lighting design. During the 1920s, she worked upstate at General Electric's laboratory in Schenectady on a lighting setup that permitted the use of color film in motion picture production.

"I was drawn to Maude Adams first because of her physical beauty and stage persona," said Joyce Sorrese, a local resident and member who attended a workshop on Maude last spring. "But, I soon became determined to find out more about Maude Adams the person. She was not only an esteemed actress but a brilliant director, an inventor, a philanthropist and a teacher."

Born Maude Adams Ewing Kiskadden in Utah on Nov. 11, 1872, her mother (Asenath Adams, who often went by "Annie") was also an actress. Maude's father, James Kiskadden, was instantly smitten with Annie, whom he first saw on the stage herself.

Sharing a vocation, Maude and her mother traveled together extensively. They both performed their first production in New York when Maude was just eight years old, according to a Society presentation from 2000.* Gaining more experience and plaudits for her work, around 1890 a renowned Broadway producer named Charles Frohman began managing her career.

With Frohman helping to steer Maude toward leading roles, she first found success with "The Little Minister," written by Scottish playwright James M. Barrie. And it wasn't merely modest success, even by modern standards: The presentation states that Maude's earnings grew to $20,000 a week.

Using this money, she was able to buy a farm in Ronkonkoma named Sandy Garth from a fellow actor whom she first visited in 1894, according to the "Three Waves" book. She eventually purchased nearly 900 acres of local land, including what are now the Cenacle Sisters retreat and the grounds of Sachem North High School.

Not long after her real estate investments (she also bought an apartment house in New York City and a summer home in the Catskills), she took on her most famous role as Peter Pan. The script, also written by Barrie and later reproduced as a book, was written with Maude in mind for the lead, according to Spencer.

Remaining busy through much of the 1910s with other productions, Maude had wanted to visit and rest at an Augustinian convent in France she'd visited over a decade prior, but World War I made travel there impossible. She instead stayed at the Cenacle of St. Regis in Manhattan.

Her connection to the sisters grew so strong that when she invited Cenacle Sisters from New York and Europe to Sandy Garth, she gave them the 400-acre plot, formally transferring it on June 8, 1922.

In later years, following several post-retirement careers, she grew more involved in academics and teaching at various colleges, and had begun to pen an autobiography. She died on July 17, 1953 in upstate New York at a cottage she owned - just four months before what would have been her eightieth birthday.

* - The presentation on Maude Adams, dated Nov. 1, 2000 and researched by former Society trustee Robert Van Horn (who is no longer a resident of the area) with the help of current trustee Marjorie Raynor, is available upon request.